Thomas Bulkowski’s successful investment activities allowed him to retire at age 36. He is an internationally known author and trader with 30+ years of stock market experience and widely regarded as a leading expert on chart patterns. He may be reached at

Support this site! Clicking the links (below) takes you to
Amazon.com. If you buy ANYTHING, they pay for the referral.

Tweezers Bottom: Summary

The tweezers bottom candlestick pattern is a name that makes sense to me. On this candlestick, price trends downward leading to the start of the tweezers. There, two candles of any color
share the same low price, as if the low is where the tweezers join.

Unfortunately, as a tradeable candlestick, it is lousy. It is supposed to be a bullish reversal because price stops at the same low twice, signaling a support area, but testing reveals
that price just continues lower. The overall performance is about mid list, too, so the trend after the breakout is not exciting.

Tweezers Bottom: Discussion

The tweezers bottom candle is supposed to act as a bullish reversal, but testing shows that it acts as a bearish continuation pattern 52% of the time. That is near random, so do not
depend on predicting the breakout direction.

The best average move 10 days after the breakout is a rise of 4.95% in a bear market. That ranks 29th, which is respectable. I consider moves of 6% or more as good, so this candle
pattern is more than a bit short.

Tweezers Bottom: Three Trading Tidbits

Tweezers bottom candles that appear within a third of the yearly low perform best -- page 832.

Select tall candles for the best performance -- page 832.

Tweezers bottoms within a third of the yearly high tend to act as reversals most often -- page 834.

Tweezers Bottom: Example

The tweezers bottom appears circled in red on the daily chart. This one shows after a strong downward price trend. A black and white candle
pair appears as the tweezers bottom, but they could be any color and any size just as long as they share the same low price.

Price breaks out upward from the tweezers bottom when price closes above the top of the candle pattern. That signals a reversal of the downward price trend. In this example, the
reversal sticks and price trends upward off the hard right edge of the chart.